THE insurance industry in Zambia is targeting to cover six million adults by 2019, particularly in the informal sector through innovative products such as micro insurance.

Insurance Association of Zambia (IAZ) executive director Christabel Banda said in an interview that 8.1 million adults had been insured by 2015, a number she said would increase by 2019.

“So the 6 million from the assessment we made, we believe it was just to look at how many mobile subscribers we have and small scale farmers because the companies will partners with distributions or FISP. The biggest challenge people do not take up insurance is lack of knowledge,” she said.

Ms Banda said over 80 percent of adults in Zambia were employed in the informal sector, hence the need to target the sector.

She explained that the industry had enhanced micro insurance as a measure to attract insurance to the informal sector.

She further explained that the micro insurance was meant for the low income.

“So with micro insurance, there are a lot of innovative ways of distributing the insurance because there are premiums as low as K5 per month.

“Right now we have about 9 micro insurance products on the markets and if you look at the projections and the number that they are expected to reach with those products, the numbers are quite high,’’ she said.

Ms Banda also said penetration in the industry remained a challenge due to lack of knowledge by the members of the public.

“The number of adults insured has been growing steadily but what has not been growing is the actual penetration on the ground, so we have given ourselves the target of 6 million because we believe that if more access this service, there will be more economic growth,’’ she said.